Style is not a filter
Style is not a filter, a list of motifs, or the most obvious feature of an artist’s work. It is a recurring system of decisions shaped by perception, subject, medium, process, history, and constraint.
Two works can share a palette and still follow completely different visual logics. Ask not only what the image looks like, but why it keeps making certain choices.
Ten layers for reading style
What does the work believe is worth noticing? Which questions and tensions return?
Which people, objects, places, events, or inner states repeatedly enter the work?
How are crop, balance, hierarchy, scale, viewpoint, and empty space used?
Are forms geometric, organic, fragmented, modeled, flat, loose, exact, heavy, or fragile?
How do palette, contrast, temperature, shadow, and illumination build mood or meaning?
How do paint, print, camera, textile, code, sound, or motion determine what is possible?
Does the work grow through observation, chance, repetition, research, performance, or strict planning?
How does it handle sequence, duration, stillness, speed, repetition, or narrative?
Which traditions, technologies, politics, communities, and historical conditions shape the choices?
Which limits are chosen or inherited, and how do they become a productive grammar?
Choose three works by one artist from different years. For every layer, record what stays stable, what changes, and what cannot be concluded from only three examples.